Glyphosate (N-phosphonomethylglycine) is a widely used active ingredient in herbicides. Glyphosate inhibits 5-enolpyruvyl-3-phosphoshikimic acid synthase (EPSP synthase, or EPSPS). EPSPS is involved in the synthesis of aromatic amino acids in plant cells. Inhibition of EPSPS effectively disrupts protein synthesis and thereby kills the affected plant cells. Because glyphosate is non-selective, it kills both weeds and crop plants. Thus it is useful with crop plants when one can modify the crop plants to be resistant to glyphosate, allowing the desirable plants to survive exposure to the glyphosate.
Recombinant DNA technology has been used to isolate mutant EPSP synthases that are glyphosate-resistant. Such glyphosate-resistant mutant EPSP synthase genes can be transformed into plants and confer glyphosate-resistance upon the transformed plants. By way of example, a glyphosate tolerant gene was isolated from Agrobacterium strain CP4 as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,633,435. The full length maize EPSPS gene is described at U.S. Pat. No. 7,045,684. It is imported to the chloroplast and the chloroplast transit peptide cleaved, producing the mature EPSPS. See Herouet-Guicheney et al. (2009) “Safety evaluation of the double mutant 5-enolypyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (2mEPSPS) from maize that confers tolerance to glyphosate herbicide in transgenic plants” Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, Vol. 54, Issue 2, pp 143-153. Other glyphosate tolerant genes have been created through the introduction of mutations. These include those isolated by Comai and described at U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,094,945, 4,769,061 and 4,535,060. A single mutant has been utilized, as described in 5,310,667 by substituting an alanine residue for a glycine residue at between positions 80 and 120. Double mutants are also described at U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,225,114 and 5,866,775 in which, in addition to the above mutation, a second mutation (a threonine residue for an alanine residue between positions 170 and 210) is introduced into a wild-type EPSPS gene.
Other work resulted in the production of a glyphosate tolerant EPSPS maize through the introduction of a double mutant EPSPS gene bearing mutations at residue 102 (changing threonine to isoleucine) and at residue 106 (changing proline to serine) of the amino acid sequence encoded by GenBank Accession No. X63374 and shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,566,587 and 6,040,497, each of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
The expression of foreign genes in plants is known to be influenced by their location in the plant genome, perhaps due to chromatin structure (e.g., heterochromatin) or the proximity of transcriptional regulatory elements (e.g., enhancers) close to the integration site (Weising et al. (1988) Ann. Rev. Genet. 22: 421-477, 1988). At the same time the presence of the transgene at different locations in the genome influences the overall phenotype of the plant in different ways. For this reason, it is often necessary to screen a large number of events in order to identify an event characterized by optimal expression of an introduced gene of interest. For example, it has been observed in plants and in other organisms that there may be a wide variation in levels of expression of an introduced gene among events. There may also be differences in spatial or temporal patterns of expression, for example, differences in the relative expression of a transgene in various plant tissues, that may not correspond to the patterns expected from transcriptional regulatory elements present in the introduced gene construct. It is also observed that the transgene insertion can affect the endogenous gene expression. For these reasons, it is common to produce hundreds to thousands of different events and screen those events for a single event that has desired transgene expression levels and patterns for commercial purposes. An event that has desired levels or patterns of transgene expression is useful for introgressing the transgene into other genetic backgrounds by sexual outcrossing using conventional breeding methods. Progeny of such crosses maintain the transgene expression characteristics of the original transformant. This strategy is used to ensure reliable gene expression in a number of varieties that are well adapted to local growing conditions.